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11. Will continue marketing and showing property until closing date to increase the chance of an overbid

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Receipt of probate is the first step in the legal process of administering the estate of a deceased person, resolving all claims and distributing the deceased person's property under a will. A probate court (surrogate court) decides the legal validity of atestator's will and grants its approval by granting probate to the executor. The probated will becomes a legal document that may be enforced by the executor in the law-courts if necessary. A probate also officially appoints the executor (or personal representative), generally named in the will, as having legal power to dispose of the testator's assets in the manner specified in the will.

Probate administration

Probate is a process that proves the will of a deceased person is valid, so their property can in due course be retitled (US terminology) or transferred to beneficiaries of the will. As with any legal proceeding, there are technical aspects to probate administration:

Creditors must be notified and legal notices published.

Executors of the will must be guided in how and when to distribute assets and how to take creditors' rights into account.

A Petition to appoint a personal representative may need to be filed and letters of administration obtained.

Homestead property, which follows its own set of unique rules in states like Florida, must be dealt with separately from other assets. In many common law jurisdictions such as Canada, parts of the US, the UK, Australia and India, jointly owned property passes automatically to the surviving joint owner separately from any will, unless the equitable title is held as tenants in common.

There are time factors involved in filing and objecting to claims against the estate.

There may be a lawsuit pending over the decedent's death or there may have been pending suits that are now continuing. There may be separate procedures required in contentious probate cases.

Real estate or other property may need to be sold to effect correct distribution of assets pursuant to the will or merely to pay debts.

Estate taxes, gift taxes or inheritance taxes must be considered if the estate exceeds certain thresholds.

Costs of the administration including ordinary taxation such as income tax on interest and property taxation is deducted from assets in the estate before distribution by the executors of the will.

Other assets may simply need to be transferred from the deceased to his or her beneficiaries.

In any jurisdictions in the U.S. that recognize a married couple's property as tenancy by the entireties, if a person dies intestate (owning property without a will), the portion of his/her estate so titled passes to a surviving spouse without a probate.

If the estate is not automatically devised to the surviving spouse in this manner or through a joint tenancy, and is not held within a trust, it is necessary to "probate the estate", whether or not the decedent had a valid will. A court having jurisdiction of the decedent's estate (a probate court) supervises probate, to administer the disposition of the decedent's property according to the law of the jurisdiction and the decedent's intent as manifested in his testamentary instrument. Dispose of certain estate assets requires selling illiquid assets, including real estate. There are exceptions for smaller estates.[citation needed] If the decedent died without a will, known as intestacy, the estate is distributed according to the laws of the state where the decedent resided, or as held by the court. If the decedent died with a will, the will usually names an executor(personal representative), who carries out the instructions laid out in the will. The executor marshals the decedent's assets. If there is no will, or if the will does not name an executor, the probate court can appoint one. Traditionally, the representative of an intestate estate is called an administrator. If the decedent died with a will, but only a copy of the will can be located, many states allow the copy to be probated, subject to the rebuttable presumption that the testator destroyed the will before death.

In some cases, where the person named as executor cannot administer the probate, or wishes to have someone else do so, another person is named administrator. An executor or an administrator may receive compensation for his service.

The probate court may require that the executor provide a fidelity bond, an insurance policy in favor of the estate to protect against possible abuse by the executor.

The representative of a testate estate who is someone other than the executor named in the will is an administrator with the will annexed, or administrator c.t.a. (from the Latin cum testamento annexo.) The generic term for executors or administrators is personal representative.

Steps of San Antonio probate

Some of the decedent's property may never enter probate because it passes to another person contractually, such as the death proceeds of an insurance policy insuring the decedent or bank or retirement account that names a beneficiary or is owned as "payable on death", and property (sometimes a bank or brokerage account) legally held as "jointly owned with right of survivorship".

Property held in a revocable or irrevocable trust created during the grantor's lifetime also avoids probate. In these cases in the U.S. no court action is involved and the property is distributed privately, subject to estate taxes.

After opening the probate case with the court, the personal representative inventories and collects the decedent's property. Next, he pays any debts and taxes, includingestate tax in the United States, if the estate is taxable at the federal or state level. Finally, he distributes the remaining property to the beneficiaries, either as instructed in the will, or under the intestacy laws of the state.

A party may challenge any aspect of the probate administration, such as a direct challenge to the validity of the will, known as a will contest, a challenge to the status of the person serving as personal representative, a challenge as to the identity of the heirs, and a challenge to whether the personal representative is properly administering the estate. Issues of paternity can be disputed among the potential heirs in intestate estates, especially with the advent of inexpensive DNA profiling techniques. In some situations, however, even biological heirs can be denied their inheritance rights, while non-biological heirs can be granted inheritance rights.

The personal representative must understand and abide by the fiduciary duties, such as a duty to keep money in interest bearing account and to treat all beneficiaries equally. Not complying with the fiduciary duties may allow interested persons to petition for the removal of the personal representative and hold the personal representative liable for any harm to the estate.

San Antonio Probate Real Estate | Bexar County Probate

Probate is a term that is used in several different ways. Probate can refer to the act of presenting a will to a court officer for filing — such as, to "probate" a will. But in a more general sense, probate refers to the method by which your estate is administered and processed through the legal system after you die.

The probate process helps you transfer your estate in an orderly and supervised manner. Your estate must be dispersed in a certain manner (your debts and taxes paid before your beneficiaries receive their inheritance, for example). Think of the probate process as the "script" that guides the orderly transfer of your estate according to the rules.

Many people think that probate applies to you only if you have a will. Wrong! Your estate will be probated whether or not you have a will.

With a valid will: If you have a valid will, then your will determines how your estate is transferred during probate and to whom.

Without a valid will: If you don't have a will, or if you die partially intestate, where only part of your estate is covered by a valid will, the laws where you live specify who gets what parts of your estate.

So read on for a few important points about San Antonio & Bexar County probate you might need to know.

The probate process

Even though you won't be around when your estate goes through probate (after all, you'll be dead), you need to understand how the probate process works. At the most basic levels, the probate process involves two steps:

Pays debts you owe

Transfers assets to your beneficiaries

A state court called the probate court oversees the probate process.Because probate courts are state courts and not federal courts, the processes they follow may vary from one state to another. Yet despite their differences, these courts all pretty much follow the same basic processes and steps, which typically include:

Swearing in your personal representative

Notifying heirs, creditors, and the public that you are, indeed, dead

Inventorying your property

Distributing your estate (including paying bills and any taxes)

Swearing in your personal representative

In your will, you name who you want to be your personal representative — that is, the person in charge of your estate after you die. However, the court determines the personal representative for your estate under the following circumstances:

You die without a will.

You have a will but for some reason didn't specify who you want to be your personal representative.

The person you selected has died or for some reason can't serve — and you didn't "bring in someone from the bullpen" to replace your original choice.

A family member, such as your spouse or an adult child, can request that the court appoint him or her as the personal representative for your estate. Regardless of who is finally selected, the court gives your personal representative official rights to handle your estate's affairs. As evidence that this person has the authority to act on behalf of your estate, the court gives your personal representative a certified document called the Letters of Administration or Letters Testamentary.

In either case, the personal representative named in your will or determined by the court has to first be formally appointed by the court before officially entering into office (the term that's used). Usually this involves that the personal representative take an oath of office, after which he or she will then receive the official documentation showing his or her status (the Letters of Administration or Letters Testamentary we mention above).

Your personal representative files a document called a Petition for Probate of Will and Appointment of Personal Representative with the probate court. This petition begins the probate process. If you have a will, the probate court issues an order admitting your will to probate. Basically, the court acknowledges your will's validity.

Notifying creditors and the public

Some state laws require your personal representative to publish a death notice in your local paper. The death notice serves as a public notice of your estate's probate and enables people who think they have an interest in your estate (such as creditors) to file a claim against your estate within a specified time period.

The notice is part of the process to make the matters of your estate part of the public record. Some people view the general public's ability to review your private estate matters as one of probate's disadvantages.

Inventorying your property

The personal representative must inventory the different types of property — real and personal — that make up your estate so that your estate value can be determined. This inventory is important for a couple of reasons:

To make sure you left enough to cover your debts and distributions to beneficiaries: If your estate doesn't meet the monetary obligations of both your estate creditors and your property transfers to your beneficiaries, it's subject to abatement statutes, meaning that one or more beneficiaries may receive less than you had wanted or even nothing at all.

To ensure that all property is accounted for. Your personal representative is in charge of collecting and inventorying your estate's assets to make sure that all property is available for distributing at the end of the probate process. (Your beneficiaries, of course, will want to know what assets are in your estate.) If property is missing or not in your ownership at the time of your death, ademption statutes become relevant. These statutes determine if a replacement asset or cash equivalent should replace the missing property intended for your beneficiary.

Distributing the estate

The final step in the probate process is the distribution of your estate property. In other words, everyone (ideally) — both your creditors and your heirs — gets what's coming to them.

Creditors that have a valid claim are likely to be paid in the following order (though the order varies from state to state):

Whatever's left after your creditors get their money is distributed to your heirs or to the beneficiaries you named in your will. If you died without a will, the laws in your state determine how your property is distributed.

If probate proceeds according to plan and all notices and communications are properly handled, your personal representative is usually protected against any subsequent, late-arriving claims. Your personal representative will be protected after some specified time period expires.

Some complicating factors to the probate process

Some probate processes can be relatively straightforward, while others can be particularly complicated depending on how complicated an estate is. The following sections describe some of the more common complicating factors about probate that you will likely encounter.

What's probated where: Differences between states

All states have probate, and all the types of property that make up your estate — real and personal — may be part of your estate's probate. Tangible and intangible personal property, like your collectibles and your stock portfolio, are probated in the state where you live, but your real estate is probated where the property is actually located. So if you live on a farm in Pennsylvania and also have a vacation condo in Florida, you'll have two probates.

Probate or not: Differences between types of property

Another common misconception is that probate applies to all of your estate. Actually, probate handles the processing of all assets in your probate estate. Your probate estate is made up of all the property that's distributed through probate; the remaining property is called nonprobate property.

In a general sense, probate assets are those you own alone, while you own nonprobate assets jointly with others and to whom those assets will pass automatically upon your death. Nonprobate assets also include assets that pass to a named beneficiary: a life insurance policy, for example. Because these nonprobate assets pass to someone automatically, there is no need for probate.